So we came here. I didn't care about facing things at home where everybody knew us. And I didn't like the idea of a sanatorium. Alice is my wife, you know--sickness or health, for better, for worse, and all that. Come along; dinner's getting cold.'
He advanced to the table, leading his wife, whose dim eyes seemed to brighten a little at the sight of food.
'Sit down, my dear, and eat your nice dinner. (She understands that, you see.) You'll excuse her table- manners, won't you? They're not pretty, but you'll get used to them.'
He tied a napkin round the neck of the creature and placed food before her in a deep bowl. She snatched at it hungrily, slavering and gobbling as she scooped it up in her fingers and smeared face and hands with the gravy.
Wetherall drew out a chair for his guest opposite to where his wife sat. The sight of her held Langley with a kind of disgusted fascination.
The food--a sort of salmis--was deliciously cooked, but Langley had no appetite. The whole thing was an outrage, to the pitiful woman and to himself. Her seat was directly beneath the Sargent portrait, and his eyes went helplessly from the one to the other.
'Yes,' said Wetherall, following his glance. 'There is a difference, isn't there?' He himself was eating heartily and apparently enjoying his dinner. 'Nature plays sad tricks upon us.'
'Is it always like this?'
'No; this is one of her bad days. At times she will be--almost human. Of course these people here don't know what to think of it all. They have their own explanation of a very simple medical phenomenon.'
'Is there any hope of recovery?'
'I'm afraid not--not of a permanent cure. You are not eating anything.'
'I--well, Wetherall, this has been a shock to me.'
'Of course. Try a glass of burgundy. I ought not to have asked you to come, but the idea of talking to an educated fellow-creature once again tempted me, I must confess.'
'It must be terrible for you.'
'I have become resigned. Ah, naughty, naughty!' The idiot had flung half the contents of her bowl upon the table. Wetherall patiently remedied the disaster, and went on:
'I can bear it better here, in this wild place where everything seems possible and nothing unnatural. My people are all dead, so there was nothing to prevent me from doing as I liked about it.'
'No. What about your property in the States?'
'Oh, I run over from time to time to keep an eye on things. In fact, I am due to sail next month. I'm glad you caught me. Nobody over here knows how we're fixed, of course. They just know we're living in Europe.'
'Did you consult no American doctor?'
'No. We were in Paris when the first symptoms declared themselves. That was shortly after that visit you paid to us.' A flash of some emotion to which Langley could not put a name made the doctor's eyes for a moment sinister. 'The best men on this side confirmed my own diagnosis. So we came here.'
He rang for Martha, who removed the salmis and put on a kind of sweet pudding.
'Martha is my right hand,' observed Wetherall. 'I don't know what we shall do without her. When I am away, she looks after Alice like a mother. Not that there's much one can do for her, except to keep her fed and warm and clean--and the last is something of a task.'
There was a note in his voice which jarred on Langley. Wetherall noticed his recoil and said:
'I won't disguise from you that it gets on my nerves sometimes. But it can't be helped. Tell me about yourself. What have you been doing lately?'
Langley replied with as much vivacity as he could assume, and they talked of indifferent subjects till the deplorable being which had once been Alice Wetherall began to mumble and whine fretfully and scramble down from her chair.
'She's cold,' said Wetherall. 'Go back to the fire, my dear.'
He propelled her briskly towards the hearth, and she sank back into the armchair, crouching and complaining and thrusting out her hands towards the blaze. Wetherall brought out brandy and a box of cigars.
'I contrive just to keep in touch with the world, you see,' he said. 'They send me these from London. And I get the latest medical journals and reports. I'm writing a book, you know, on my own subject; so I don't vegetate. I can experiment, too--plenty of room for a laboratory, and no Vivisection Acts to bother one. It's a good country to work in. Are you staying here long?'
'I think not very.'
'Oh! If you had thought of stopping on, I would have offered you the use of this house while I was away. You would find it more comfortable than the posada, and I should have no qualms, you know, about leaving you alone in the place with my wife--under the peculiar circumstances.'
He stressed the last words and laughed. Langley hardly knew what to say.
'Really, Wetherall--'
'Though, in the old days, you might have liked the prospect more and I might have liked it less. There was a time, I think, Langley, when you would have jumped at the idea of living alone with-- my wife.'
Langley jumped up.
'What the devil are you insinuating, Wetherall?'
'Nothing, nothing. I was just thinking of the afternoon when you and she wandered away at a picnic and got lost. You remember? Yes, I thought you would.'
'This is monstrous,' retorted Langley. 'How dare you say such a thing--with that poor soul sitting there--?'
'Yes, poor soul. You're a poor thing to look at now, aren't you, my kitten?'
He turned suddenly to the woman. Something in his abrupt gesture seemed to frighten her, and she shrank away from him.
'You devil!' cried Langley. 'She's afraid of you. What have you been doing to her? How did she get in this state? I will know!'
'Gently,' said Wetherall. 'I can allow for your natural agitation at finding her like this, but I can't have you coming between me and my wife. What a faithful fellow you are, Langley. I believe you still want her--just as you did before when you thought I was dumb and blind. Come now, have you got designs on my wife, Langley? Would you like to kiss her, caress her, take her to bed with you--my beautiful wife?'
A scarlet fury blinded Langley. He dashed an inexpert fist at the mocking face. Wetherall gripped his arm, but he broke away. Panic seized him. He fled stumbling against the furniture and rushed out. As he went he heard Wetherall very softly laughing.
The train to Paris was crowded. Langley, scrambling in at the last moment, found himself condemned to the corridor. He sat down on a suitcase and tried to think. He had not been able to collect his thoughts on his wild flight. Even now, he was not quite sure what he had fled from. He buried his head in his hands.
'Excuse me,' said a polite voice.
Langley looked up. A fair man in a grey suit was looking down at him through a monocle.
'Fearfully sorry to disturb you,' went on the fair man. 'I'm just tryin' to barge back to my jolly old kennel. Ghastly crowd, isn't it? Don't know when I've disliked my fellow-creatures more. I say, you don't look frightfully fit. Wouldn't you be better on something more comfortable?'
Langley explained that he had not been able to get a seat. The fair man eyed his haggard and unshaven countenance for a moment and then said:
'Well, look here, why not come and lay yourself down in my bin for a bit? Have you had any grub? No? That's a mistake. Toddle along with me and we'll get hold of a spot of soup and so on. You'll excuse my mentioning it, but you look as if you'd been backing a system that's come unstuck, or something. Not my business, of course, but do have something to eat.'
Langley was too faint and sick to protest. He stumbled obediently along the corridor till he was pushed into a first-class sleeper, where a rigidly correct manservant was laying out a pair of mauve silk pyjamas and a set of silver-mounted brushes.
'This gentleman's feeling rotten, Bunter,' said the man with the monocle, 'so I've brought him in to rest his
